Polydads/moms, Help! My daughter won't go to sleep!

[Japher]

kids will eat until the fall asleep from eating

don't let that happen
feed them, then give them some play time

[BlackCat]

Ok, that makes sense

[Japher]

good... I have a hard time making sense

[BlackCat]

I would have said that you should stick to talking to babies, but then remembered that you are posting here

[Japher]

ah, does little blacky catty want a snacky?

[BlackCat]

Originally posted by Japher
ah, does little blacky catty want a snacky?

Originally posted by Japher
good... I have a hard time making sense

[Harovan]

I remember when my son was a little boy, there was a night, where he didn't want to sleep either. He kept standing up again and again, too hot, drink, pee, whatever. My wife was pretty fed up and I have to admit, so was I.

When he stood up the next time (it was about half past nine already - he had to sleep at seven!), I said, ok young man, enough is enough. I went with him to the kitchen and took a mysterious looking pill out of a drawer. I gave him the pill. Take it, I said. He swallowed it and seemed to be honored, that I had given him a sleeping pill.

It worked nicely. He went to bed without any protest and fell asleep within 15 minutes.

It was only a harmless multivitamin pill.

[Flubber]

The sleep thing .. . . I have seen many proponents of the Ferber method ( ie have them cry it out and deal with things themselves) but there are just as many critics and if you go to a parenting website, you will see that there is a lot of divided opinion on the "best" method.

I general my methodology with our now 3 year old has been to make sure he is tired. Its tough when they are under 1 but after that , I find very physical play generally tends to have them falling asleep at bedtime. You essentially plan your activities with a bedtime goal in mind


In the specific case I see its a 10 month old so its tougher to do (although you can encourage active crawling/toddling and attempts to climb). Assuming you have checked all the obvious things to ensure they are comfortable, then your question is what's going on. There may be no issue at all ( we all have nights we cannot sleep) but a question /comment come to mind.

How often and long does your child nap now? I recall that it wasn't much past age 1 that we moved our son from two naps to one . Perhaps your child simply requires less sleep so the sensible thing to do is start ensuring shorter naps. With a 3 year old we have started eliminating napping altogther. We found a 1 hour nap meant his nightime sleep was 1 hour shorter-- a two hour nap meant pretty much a two hour shorter sleep. (so even if you succeed in getting him to bed you may face a very very early morning)

I am just wondering if you are experiencing an normal evolution in her sleep patterns. If it is, you need a new plan if your child is going to fundamentally not be ready for sleep at "bedtime". PLans could include

1. changing the routine somewhat to get into a new routine that better fits their sleep habits. Try shortening her naps or even pushing your entire nightime routine back fiteen minutes

2. Through the "cry it out" or other methods get them to the point that they are comfortable playing in their bed/crib until they are tired enough to sleep.
OR

3. Accept that you could have a lot of nights facing this issue (if the child is fundamentally not tired at "bed-time"


But since the changed behavior has only been a couple of nights, it may very well be a temporary thing like the heat or teething or a stomachache. At 10 months those things are often hard to know for sure. If its a temporary problem that is interfering with their sleep , I'm not against employing any sort "trick" that helps bring them some comfort. Some that we used

electric razer-- both the noise and the vibration
Hairdryer
go for a drive

etc etc-- but we only used these in an exceptional circumstance

Heck-- what you want most is a peaceful evening transition until they are asleep. When our son was feeling ill I even brought in my mini-DVD player which he watched in bed until he drifted off. While I don't want him watching tv too much, the poor guy had a fever and was feeling miserable-- his favorite dvd ( Mighty Machines) distracted him-- allowed us some peace and with us gone and him lying in bed, he was out in less than a half hour-- but again this was an exceptional circumstance and a few nights later we reverted to our regular routine.


AS you can tell, I am a big believer in routine but I think you can deviate for any exceptional circumstance. If your child just is simply not tired though, you need a new routine.

[Japher]

holy crap!

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
I remember when my son was a little boy, there was a night, where he didn't want to sleep either. He kept standing up again and again, too hot, drink, pee, whatever. My wife was pretty fed up and I have to admit, so was I.

WE have tried to address most of those issues with a nightime routine that involves a bathroom trip as the last step and a glass of water that sits on his bedside table. They will find any excuse to spend more time with us -- which is nice kinda . . .

[Flubber]

Originally posted by Aabraxan

3) Structure, structure, structure -- I found that getting my daughter to sleep through the night was aided immensely by doing things the same way every night. That's not to say that she was in bed at precisely 9:03 p.m. all the time, but we got her up, fed her, put her down for naps and put her to bed within about a half hour of a set time every day. We got the info from a book called, IIRC, "Babywise." (author unknown). At bedtime, we did basically the same things every night: diaper change, pajamas, soft music, rocking. My feeling is that the bedtime routine gave her all of the "cues" that it was time to go to sleep.

yup-- our son knows the routine and once he sees his snack and then the cleaning routine and his storybooks-- he KNOWS its bedtime-- and never never never try to get out of there without giving him TWO stories . .. he knows his rights

[Japher]

Babywise is a good set of books.